Goodbye to Allo: Google confirms it will shutter its short-lived messaging app

In a turn of events pretty much everyone outside of Google saw coming, the search giant is apparently poised to wind down its Google Allo messaging app, with an announcement coming “soon.” That’s according to a new report from 9to5Google, which quotes a “reliable source familiar with the plan” though there are few details other than that at this point.

And about that word: “plan” — it seemed that was always something lacking relative to Google’s fractured and disparate messaging-related properties, such that it’s never had one single strong product that could credibly rival something like iMessage. Indeed, Google vice president Anil Sabharwal acknowledged as much about eight months ago in an interview, saying that the company would be putting a pause on additional investment into Allo. He admitted then that “The product as a whole has not achieved the level of traction that we’d hoped for,” though Google would keep supporting the app.